Tag Archives: iron man

1. Even if you’re not a fan of the brilliant US sitcom Community, you have to be concerned about the willingness of NBC to basically fire its creator and head writer Dan Harmon. This is what’s happened ahead of Community’s fourth season return (and given its 13 episode order and bump to Friday night, it’s safe to call this the final season). Dan Harmon didn’t find out before the rest of us, by the way. A press release was issued whilst he was on a plane, and he landed in LA to a barrage of text messages and tweets. This is his response. (And if you get a moment, this memo NBC sent Community cast members about how they should respond to questions about the controversy in interviews doesn’t make NBC look much better.)

RT @maskedscheduler A board game, a pregnancy manual and a thirty year old soap opera….welcome to the wonderful world of motion pictures.

3. Are you a little confused about the chronology of the Marvel Studios films? When did they find the Tesseract from Captain America in that scene in Thor? At what point in the Iron Man chronology does Tony Stark meet with The Incredible Hulk’s General Ross? Marvel’s got you covered. (via Jon Favreau)

4. Star Wars fans can’t do anything without Star Trek fans responding in kind. Only a few weeks after this column pointed you to a study showing a Death Star would cost US$852 quadrillion, we now have a more practical and affordable option: build the USS Enterprise. At US$1 trillion, it’s a steal at twice the price. Here’s how we do it. (via Marc Fennell)

RT @Jamwa Liam Neeson’s cock is so big the opening credits of Dr Who were filmed inside his urethra.

5. With Mark Zuckerberg currently enjoying All The Wealth, and Facebook being floated on the stock exchange this past week, it’s hard to talk about the social networking site without bringing it back to money. And now you can find out how much you are personally worth to Facebook. (I clocked in at $71. Before Facebook’s stock went public, this figure was $3. Which is why I’ve been going around saying ‘Three dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Seventy-one dollars.’) (via Chas Licciardello)

RT @paulbyrom Why is Facebook going public?Could they not figure out the privacy settings either?

6. I like high concept ideas. The idea behind HBO’s Girls is ‘What if we made a version of Sex and the City that Lee actually liked?’. Girls, created, written by, mostly directed by, and starring Lena Dunham is honest, funny, dramatic and engaging in a way that I wasn’t expecting. This brilliant article in the New York Review of Books gives you a good idea why.

RT @AdrianMartin25 I found page of my notes from 1982: titled GIRLS, it reads: “faces – songs – plots – fashions – youth culture”. So see, I invented that show

RT @sexenheimer Weird how the Zodiac murders really tapered off after Neil Diamond got a soundproof home recording studio/kill room. Hashtag Just Saying.

8. These days it’s rare that we see the best example of a political leader: one who takes an unpopular moral stance on an issue, doing so simply because it’s the right thing to do. This is what happened when Barack Obama came out in support of gay marriage. What’s even more remarkable is that the expected backlash never really came. Republicans knew that fighting him on it would galvanise Obama’s base, but the public? Well, they seem to have had their minds changed. In six years, the number of American citizens supporting gay marriage went from 36% to 51%. Obama’s announcement may not have had any immediate legislative effect, but it’s undoubtedly a big step. (via Max Denton)

RT @beatrixcoles The FRIENDS theme would make more sense if it was “hasn’t been your year, your week, or even your day”. Days are the easiest to achieve.

10. Remember that Apocalypse that was supposed to happen last year? May 21, 2011 was the date the world was going to end, and its proponents were adamant that it was a definite. One year on, how do they feel? (via Leigh Paatsch)

RT @dissolvedpet What I have learned from Twitter on #Cannes: folk have many diverse views & opinions, none of which tell me anything

If any of you Melburnians are in the city tomorrow (Saturday 25 May), feel free to swing by the Emerging Writers Festival (Look! I’m pulling a silly expression on the front page of the website!) to hear me speak unintelligibly about writing graphic novels. I’ll be talking with Mirranda Burton at 12:30pm at the Melbourne Town Hall, so come on by and heckle. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to an 8-bit recording of Radiohead’s OK Computer.

1. Australian Federal politics is currently embroiled in leadership woes, which has basically been the norm since the late 1990s. But, obviously concerned for the government’s current state, Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Bill Shorten has clearly decided to form a backup plan by auditioning for a revival of Yes, Minister. (via Armando Iannucci)

RT @BrianLynch I like to think when WAS (NOT WAS) broke up, it was after a long awkward silence, and then someone in the band muttered, “Guys…not was.”

RT @WolfpackAlan Nascar would be so much more entertaining if they threw banana peels and turtle shells.

5. I’m a proud member of the cult of Game of Thrones, the big-budget fantasy show with a rich and ever-expanding mythology. Most intriguing is how they created the language of Dothraki. We’ve all heard the stories of how Elvish was created for Lord of the Rings, or Klingon in Star Trek, but it’s nice to see that linguists are being employed by showrunners who take this stuff seriously.

6. I often think the level of anger aimed at public transport is a bit hyperbolic, right up until the moment a late tram makes me late for an appointment, or a train is cancelled for no discernable reason. This guy felt the anger as well, and wrote this scathing-yet-hilarious letter to Yarra Trams. What’s remarkable about this? The reply Yarra Trams sent back. (via Tara Judah)

RT @morrbeat I don’t want to be rude, but how thick to you have to be to still say “why should I listen to your views, you’ve never made a film” in 2012?

RT @mrtonymartin ‘Elia Kazan on Directing’ is a must-read for actors and directors. Although he does name four suspected communists in the introduction.

9. A new form of glass that doesn’t fog, doesn’t get dirty, and doesn’t glare? If this takes off, it could have an enormous, impossibly wide-ranging effect on nearly every aspect of our lives. (via Chas Licciardello)

RT @PunxsutawnyPhil #RED have announced new series of monitors and kit collections as options. Sadly the Breaks When You Touch It function is still mandatory.

10. I know we really shouldn’t judge world leaders on their ability to deliver comedy, but my own skewed priorities make it hard not to. The White House Correspondents Dinner is a wonderful tradition for fans of political humour. Although no one’s matched Stephen Colbert’s incredible takedown of George W Bush, this year Barack Obama himself came close. (Keep a window open to Google the references as he goes. And don’t forget to watch Jimmy Kimmel’s speech that immediately followed Obama’s.)

RT @TeganMH A man just headbutted the tram I was on & despite being very happy with my life…I kind of wanted the tram to explode.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and continue the celebrations of my annual incremental departure from the glories of youth. To hide the ravages of age, I may have to go in disguise.